The conventional way to grade lumber is to have personnel called graders manually grade the lumber, ie. to have the lumber pass by graders on a transfer (moving chains), and have the graders pick up and turn by hand individual boards, visually inspect them and assign a grade by a mark on the board, and potentially to assign a trimmer solution. Improved methods can feature automatic board turners, pushing buttons to enter the grade or the like.
It is known in the art that trimmer and edger solutions may be obtained by using optimizers. Optimizers may manually position the lumber before preset saws or manipulate laser lines or the like to define where a desired saw cut should be and have positioning equipment move the lumber and saws accordingly.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved view or image of sawn boards to increase grading accuracy and productivity.
It is also an object of the invention, that, by providing superimposed adjustable images on to a video monitor, the grader may more easily and more accurately add cutting solutions and grade decisions to the board when grading, to further enhance productivity.
It is further an object of the invention that, by having graders viewing images rather than having to physically turn the boards, repetitive motion type injury compensation claims will be reduced.